Jeremy Taiwo And Aurieyall Scott Are USTFCCCA Athletes Of The Week Taiwo set the heptathlon HJ WR at 7-4½ and scored 6,156 points overall, which makes him 3rd best in collegiate history (7th best US history) behind Ashton Eaton and Trey Hardee. Scott set the world lead in the 200m as she beat out Bowerman award winner Kimberly Duncan.

LRCChris Derrick!?! - National Champion!link fixed The wait is over. Arguably the greatest
American collegiate distance runner not to win an NCAA title, Derrick pulled away from Dathan Ritzenhein and Matt Tegenkamp to win his first national title in his first race as a sponsored pro. It was a good day for Jerry Schumacher's crew as they had 3 of the top 4 in the men's race plus Shalane Flanagan winning the women's.

Rest In Peace Will Steele - aka "The Cancer Guy"

LRCCelebrating The Life Of "The Cancer Guy" Will SteeleWill Steele was running 18 minute miles last year. And never has there
been a more inspirational runner on LetsRun.com. We pay our respects to this great
man who contributed so much to the LetsRun.com community and lost his battle with cancer one month ago on Christmas eve.

A MUST Read - One Of The Greatest Races Ever Run - The US Women's Version Of The Billy Mills 10,000 Win

RWorld Reintroduces The World To Debbie Heald, Who 40 Years Ago Incredibly Ran The US HS Indoor Mile Record Of 4:38.5Steve Friedman's piece on Heald is moving to say the least. Heald, whose father had committed suicide,
who had been molested and who was always battling injury (13 different running-related surgeries), somehow
at the US vs. USSR meet at age 16 in 1972 beat the greatest runners in the world, including the indoor 1,500 record holder and that year's eventual Olympic 1,500 champion, by running an a 8.5-second PR of 4:38.5. She came from way back to win thanks to a ferocious kick and she was known for having no kick. Her life since then has been full of struggles with schizophrenia but her HS indoor record still stands.
MB: Debbie Heald article in RW

The Week That Was

LRCThe Week That Was: A Bunch Of Nick Symmonds, The Nike .1% Solution, LRC Goes To Japan, And Much More. This week we wonder, "Can Nick Symmonds really move up to the 1,500?", LetsRun.com goes to Japan, JK is confirmed to be a genius
(yet again), and we wish that Nike would sponsor a "Just Do It Fairly" campaign.
Along the way there is talk of Matt Tegenkamp, Dathan Ritzenhein, Al Sal, Mary Cain, Galen Rupp, German Fernandez, Robby Andrews, Leo, Centro, Wheating, Tyson Gay, Dorian Ulrey, Rich Kenah, Sam Mackenzie and Nick Wade.

Thank God They & Not Us Asked It - Carmelita "The Jet" Jeter Can't Fly Away From The Doping Question Jeter refused to answer the following question: Did Lance Armstrong's confession make "it harder to convince people that athletes in other sports were clean?"
Her answer: "Well, I'm going to stay away from anything with that question, thank you."

A Great Guest Column

PJ Browne A Woman I Used To Know - Suzy Favor Hamilton Guest columnist PJ Browne reflects on Suzy Favor Hamilton and depression in a Recommended Read. "What I
can now say about depression
is that the irrational and the bizarre become the norm. There is no
blueprint in a hit and miss mixture of drugs, incarceration and therapy.
In my case, Zoloft turned me into a daring, brazen individual much to
the embarrassment of my family."

LetsRun.com's 2012 Year In Review

LRCWe Say To You The Visitor, "Thanks A Million" For Making 2012 A Record Year For Us Now that the college football bowl season is over, the year is over in our mind and
it's time to recap the special
year we had in 2012. No matter how you look at it, 2012 was a record year for LetsRun. Unique visitors were up 38.55% and for the first time wesurpassed a million unique visitors in a given month. Read the article to find out what our 5 busiest days were, what our 5 least busy days were, our most popular articles, most popular threads and more. Guess what day generated the most page views. Hint: it wasn't even a day during the Olympics or
US Olympic Trials.ce Armstrong continues and we wonder if Ashton Eaton would be nothing more than a D3 football star had he stuck with the gridiron. And Jacob Hernandez calls
it
quits.

NCAA Cross Photo Galleries (Captions Now Added)

Beautiful People: NCAA Banquet Photos (Click On Photo)

Training Advice

Advice From The Pros

Top 10 Training Tips
LetsRun.com's Weldon Johnson gives his top 10 training tips in this letsrun.com classic when the site first launched. They helped him knock 1:22 off his 10k PR in one race and will definitely help you, too.

No Shortcuts
LetsRun.Com coaching consultant John Kellogg outlines his basic coaching approach and gives the four principles to correct training for elites. LetsRun.com co-founder Robert Johnson translates Mr. Kellogg's approach so that it is beneficial for the masses.

Wejo Speaks:

Why I Sucked In College Perhaps Wejo's most popular training article ever. Wejo explains why he was only a mediocre college runner, yet ended up running 28:06 for 10k.